I feel like if it had invested in her first three novels I may have rated this one higher but there’s no way of knowing.

The narrator was great, no silly whiney voices for different characters but you could tell the difference when someone else spoke.She is currently busy writing a new series for HQ, set in the 1920's, which feature locked-roomed mysteries written in a light-hearted style. Help me name Maggie and Laurent's kids, read the daily exerpts from the latest Maggie book in process. I really enjoyed this book, this is certainly a series I am thoroughly enjoying and was delighted to find out that hot on the heels of this book, the next one is due out very soon! The author really doesn’t respect the intelligence of her readers and just for this the book doesn’t deserve better than one star, but I have generously given it two. She's managed to get over her shame (and her own internal review) after her corrupt detective husband died, while living in her Uncle's houseboat on an Oxford canal as she waits for access to her house.

I feel there's some good potential between the pair and look forward to seeing what they get up to next. Murder in the Village is the start of another brand new cosy mystery series set in the quiet, cosy village of Little Chalham and which brings together two unlikely persons together to form a crime solving duo--Belinda Penhurst an independent woman in her early forties who lives in the local castle and has financially invested in a lot of the local businesses around the village and Harry Powell, a retired police officer/detective who has recently moved to the area and now runs his own dog food business. An arrogantly famous American chef opens up a bistro in St-Buvard where things don't end well, to say the least.This is billed as a cosy/cozy mystery but it has an edgier side to it that makes it a lot more exciting than many cosies/cozies out there but still avoids graphic descriptions and profanity. Can Hillary find the murderer and survive a brush with one of Oxford's most dangerous criminals at the same time?

She's a hell of a police woman and I'm very lucky to have just started the next in the series: Murder in the Family. In the beautiful rural Somerset village of Lower Hembrow, crammed full with English eccentrics, something is amiss. A mix of thatched and old stone and slate cottages, it is home to local families and rich 'incomers' alike. They are gentle crime/detective stories with no gratuitous gore or violence or excessive suspense, so an easy and enjoyable read.The author provided detailed descriptions that allowed me to visualize the village, Belinda’s home, and the characters. When Harry Powell, a retired dectective, moves into Belinda's small town, he certainly had no intention to be dealing with yet another murder. They’re trapped in a hilarious off-the-cuff mystery so fiendish, only a genius could work out whodunnit.

Also the dognappers marking houses where they planned to strike didn’t seem a mystery at all—fairly clear from the start. Harry Powell, now retired from the author's previous East Rise series, was the only likeable character with his little chats with the villagers.Belinda's doggedness (pun intended) to get to the bottom of what was going on was enjoyable from start to finish. Just when you were sure Mia and Jack had worked out all the kinks, he has to go and propose to her mere moments before they're trapped on the side of a mountain--in the middle of an ice storm--with a psychotic killer on the loose.